Prosecutors uneasy with delay in Davis verdict

Published 4:00 am, Friday, August 2, 1996

SAN JOSE - To the dismay of prosecutors, the jury in the Richard Allen Davis trial finished its third full day of deliberations without a verdict on whether to execute Davis for murdering Polly Klaas.

"Worried? Yeah, I'm worried. They looked very uptight tonight," Sonoma County Assistant District Attorney Greg Jacobs said Thursday as he left the courthouse.

The six-man, six-woman jury opted not to work Friday and will resume deliberations Monday morning.

Jacobs and others were speculating that at least one juror may be holding out against giving Davis the death penalty. The same jury convicted the 42-year-old Davis on June 18 of first-degree murder for the 1993 kidnapping and strangling of Petaluma 12-year-old Polly Klaas.

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"This is a nightmare," Polly's father, Marc Klaas, said as he walked from the courtroom. Klaas and other family members have kept a vigil at the court throughout the more than three-month trial.

The jury has spent nearly 18 hours deliberating since the case was given to them Monday afternoon.

But defense attorney Lorena Chandler said she did not know if the lengthy deliberations were a good sign for Davis.

The jury spent about 20 hours over five days before declaring Davis guilty of all 10 counts against him.

"I don't know what it means," Chandler said. "I thought that if they were close, they would have come in tomorrow. . . . Maybe they're just tired. They have a lot of things to weigh."

Because the jury found Davis guilty of the four special circumstances of kidnapping, attempted sexual assault on a child under 14, robbery and burglary, he is eligible for only two sentences: death by lethal injection, or life in prison without parole.

If there is a hung jury, the Sonoma County district attorney would decide whether to prosecute the penalty phase again, or simply accept life in prison, Jacobs said.

If a second jury were to deadlock, the issue would go to a judge, he said.&lt;